


sitting in the dark with a shared cigarette

by soislibre



Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Bingo 2020, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Exy (All For The Game), Hand Jobs, M/M, Neil is Nathaniel, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, The Perfect Court (All For The Game), andrew does what he does for the opposite reason neil thinks, because yk………… riko, but fundamentally it is good in their hood, neil doesnt trust andrew for about 3000 words and 3 years, there are very light references to some fucked up shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25049950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soislibre/pseuds/soislibre
Summary: seeing eye-to-eye and heart-to-heart.When Nathaniel Wesninski is ten, he joins a group that will grow up to be the most formidable in professional Exy. Nothing but that matters, right?
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815703
Comments: 17
Kudos: 234
Collections: All For The Game Bingo 2020





	sitting in the dark with a shared cigarette

**Author's Note:**

> please listen to [ this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWSHBMnbxw) on repeat from the moment andrew shows up until the end, just to fully capture my own experience writing this. i finished it at 3.30am while crying.

Once upon a time Nathaniel Wesninski had found himself in a castle. It wasn’t a particularly castle-like castle, as far as his ten year old brain could understand. It seemed more like just a super big building. But it was dark, and it was creepy, and there were weird, ugly statues on the outside, so he supposed that made it a castle, plus people kept calling it that. And he met two boys there. His father seemed happy, his mother seemed sad, but Nathaniel got to play with the boys and didn’t have to listen to conversations he didn’t care about or really understand like he usually did, so it didn’t bother him that much.

What did bother him, as it always did, was the blood in his father’s hair. They had the same colour hair, although Nathan’s was already lightening at the temples, but the blood darkened it past the auburn of his son’s hair. When he turned to Nathaniel, red splattered across his face making his eyes all the more blue, Nathaniel stared back at him and didn’t shrink away, and his father nodded his approval.

That night, his mother woke him up. He looked at her watch. After a moment to figure out the direction of the hands (she refused to have a digital one like everyone else, he didn’t know why) he deciphered that it was somewhere close to four. Probably in the morning, because he’d still been asleep and it was still dark. His mother had been crying. When she rubbed an inked number off of his cheek and told him that his name was Alex, he nodded silently and wiped her face with one small hand. She buckled his seatbelt for him and together they left.

They didn’t make it very far.

Nathaniel returned to the castle. His mother did not.

As time went on and Nathaniel settled into the life he was meant to have, he forgot about that night. His name was Nathaniel Wesninski, he played backline alongside Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day. Everyone knew they were destined for Court. The three of them would play together forever. They were the future of Exy, the three of them. Nathaniel left Baltimore and didn’t look back. He knew he had been a bargaining chip; the Butcher was a man with a very specific skill set. His transferable skills were next to none, but what he did have was a son who had grown up dreaming of an Exy court and a desire not to follow in his father’s footsteps. When the Master had taken Nathaniel, he had, for a moment, ceased to be a disappointment. So he went willingly, Nathan maintained his territory and, Nathaniel heard, a new contract. Their lives were charmed and they were untouchable.

Rather, the only people who _could_ touch them were family, both blood and not.

It might have been a charmed life, but it wasn’t a fairytale. Exy was the only thing that truly mattered to any of them, it was all they knew. They were raised as brothers, but all siblings have their rivalries. Nathaniel grew up, in a way that neither Riko nor Kevin did, acutely aware that a misstep could bring everything crashing down around his ears. 

* * *

There were rumours. When Nathaniel was fifteen, rumours came in about a goalie. Destined for court, the whispers said, if it weren’t for his viciousness. Nathaniel always wondered if the viciousness was the reason Riko wanted him. It was certainly no match for technique, but when a player had both, they were pursued by the Ravens. No one had ever said no, because anyone who knew anything about Exy, anyone who cared about Exy, knew Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day, and knew how stupid it would be to say no. 

Andrew Minyard said no.

Riko’s burning anger settled on Nathaniel until he thought his skin might melt under its intensity. It razed him to the ground, and Kevin too, once Nathaniel was nothing but ash. They were given a night to patch themselves back together.

Riko took Nathaniel the next time he went to the detention centre. Sitting across from the blonde, the same height as Nathaniel - a ridiculous height for a goalkeeper, he thought, as Andrew stared blandly back at him and said nothing - Riko propped both elbows on the table and again set forward the bargain. The same bargain he had last time. It struck Nathaniel as strange, to offer the same thing Minyard had refused once before, until his gaze darted, for the hundredth time, over to the blonde. Andrew hadn’t looked at Riko once. His eyes were cold, detached, but far too focused for how doped up his smile was. Now he understood why he was there.

Kevin hadn’t worked as an incentive. Riko refused to put himself on the line. Nathaniel was younger, he had a lot of his mother’s soft features. Riko’s spoken deal was the same, but the nonverbal part of the agreement had changed.

This time, when they returned, it was with Minyard’s agreement. Every time Nathaniel remembered that smile, his stomach rolled.

* * *

Jean Moreau came to Edgar Allan when Nathaniel had just turned sixteen. The boy was a head taller than him, two years older. His face was pale and serious, and he spoke practically no English. The English he did speak came out hateful, sharp words that twisted as they burrowed under Nathaniel’s skin. He became Riko’s new favourite toy almost immediately. If Nathaniel weren’t so grateful for that, he would pity Jean. He didn’t, though. He dreaded Riko officially joining the Ravens. He dreaded still being sixteen at Evermore while Riko and Kevin played in an NCAA team. He dreaded what Riko would be able to do to him when he was the Ravens’ captain. Jean Moreau was angry, he had fight in him, and Riko had the task of breaking him. As long as he was focused on Jean, he wasn’t focused on Nathaniel.

The biggest problem with his plan to fly under the radar came in the form of Andrew Minyard. Diminutive, rude, angry with the world and everyone in it. Andrew arrived at Edgar Allan in September, semi-sober after an overnight flight, and watching from the Nest as Andrew disappeared inside, Nathaniel had to turn away to vomit. For the first time in years, he remembered his mother waking him in the middle of the night to run. He wondered how long the Butcher had made her suffer to atone for that. He wondered how long he would suffer before Andrew grew tired of him.

* * *

Nathaniel turned eighteen in January. There was no celebration; he might have forgotten if it weren’t for a small mark on his calendar. Life went on as usual, practice went on as usual. Backline left him a little too close to the goal for comfort, but Andrew hardly seemed to register that he was there when they were playing. He took a nasty check from Riko, his crash landing on the floor accompanied by a hissed reminder that he was there for one reason and if he didn’t get up, he wouldn’t see his freshman year of college. For a moment, he stayed where he was, dizzy and winded, as Riko stalked away from him, and then a hand clasped around the back of his jersey and dragged him upright so fast his head started spinning all over again. He struggled against the grip the moment he was on his feet, twisting out of it and whipping around only to come face to face with Andrew. Through the grille of his helmet, Andrew’s eyes were shadowed, dark and dangerous, his mouth tilting downwards as he considered Nathaniel. 

“Don’t touch me,” Nathaniel spat, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle upwards the longer Andrew stared at him. The goalkeeper’s eyes rolled so hard he wondered if it was painful to be that bitchy, and a too-wide smile pulled at his mouth as he turned away and headed back to where he had been. As if he didn’t give a shit about Nathaniel’s obvious distrust of him. As if it didn’t matter what he said to Andrew. As if, in the year and a half that Andrew had been there, he hadn’t ignored Nathaniel to the point where he was starting to wonder whether the reasons he’d thought Andrew’d had for coming to the Ravens were, in fact, not the reasons he’d had at all. He was confusing and that only made Nathaniel angrier; it felt like he was just waiting for Andrew to switch out of his blatant disinterest, like that was a foregone conclusion.

With Andrew’s eyes on the back of his head, practice was a lost cause, and he paid for that later. Riko clearly hadn’t missed the help he’d had to get back up, and the Master used it against him after practice, when he was curled on the floor of the court, arms crossed over his face, trying not to panic as Andrew’s name fell from the Master’s sharp mouth for the hundredth time. For a moment, as footsteps receded and he worked to catch a full breath, Nathaniel remembered Andrew’s iron grip on his jersey, rough as Andrew dragged him upright and yet oddly careful not to pull the fabric too tight. Then he remembered the unhinged grin on Andrew’s face, and in the face of that, the moment of care receded into nothing.

* * *

The first thing Nathaniel was given when he officially joined the Ravens was a jersey with a bold **3** emblazoned across the back below the word **WESNINSKI**. The number matched the fresh tattoo on his cheek, placing him squarely between Kevin and Jean in the lineup. Andrew was **5** , Riko **1**. Of course.

Their first NCAA game was accepted to be the Ravens’ strongest so far. Their starting lineup had been hugely anticipated since Nathaniel had been announced as their newest addition; the world had had no choice but to keep up with Nathaniel Wesninski almost the same as it had kept up with Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama. It was well known that they had been playing Exy together for almost a decade, that all three of them had been raised on it. Alongside Jean and Andrew, they were a dangerous combination. They fitted nicely into a dangerous team.

Their opponents stood no chance. Not the first time, nor the second, nor the third. They were called Tetsuji Moriyama’s perfect court, and they swept through the NCAA championships like it was nothing.

The problem was Andrew. The summer before Nathaniel's freshman year, Andrew was allowed to come off his court-ordered medication. Everyone knew why he was on the anti-psychotics. Everyone knew Andrew had tried to kill people. Some people knew Andrew _had_ killed. So when he returned in September, even paler than before, smile gone and the mania in his eyes replaced by _danger_ , the number of people who actually spoke to him went down to three. None of them were Nathaniel. He knew all too well the ice in Andrew’s gaze and the twist to his mouth, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

It was stomach-churning, then, that when he stepped into his new dorm room he came face to face with Andrew. A cruel joke, a hallucination he prayed to wake up from. Andrew eyed him dispassionately, and they stood in silence for a good minute before the blonde pushed him to the side and left the room without a word.

 _Weird_. Nathaniel took a few hesitant steps forward, glanced over his shoulder to make sure Andrew really was gone, then pushed the door shut and plopped onto the bed that didn’t have sheets on it. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised that Riko had done this - because it was clearly Riko’s work - when he had been the incentive for Andrew to come to Evermore in the first place. He was the reason Andrew was there. It made sense for this to be the next step. He just wished it weren’t. He knew what Riko did to Jean; he had no desire to experience it for himself.

It wasn’t until evening practice that he saw Andrew again. The smell of cigarette smoke radiating off him was smothering, and as Andrew strapped his pads on, Nathaniel watched his fingers tremble faintly. He wondered what had caused that. Everyone knew Andrew smoked, it was weird for any college athlete, let alone one meant for the US Court, but he’d never seen him shaking from the nicotine before. This was something else. Andrew’s fingers stilled and Andrew levelled a very unimpressed look at him, and Nathaniel felt his face burn with the shame of being caught staring, particularly by the person he was staring at. It didn’t help that on his way past, Andrew halted next to Nathaniel, cocked his head to the side, and hissed, “something you want?”

Once he was gone, Nathaniel leaned against the lockers, his hands shaking, and tried not to think about how, up close, he could smell Andrew’s soap mixed with the smoke.

* * *

It was weird living with Andrew. Not as unpleasant as Nathaniel had expected. Andrew kept to himself; he was messy, he smoked out of their only window (while Nathaniel glared at him and dreamed about pushing him out), and he had an intensely weird habit of eyeing Nathaniel like he was trying to figure out a difficult math question. But he didn’t go near Nathaniel, he didn’t really talk to him except on the court, and although Nathaniel heard when he woke in the night, he was pretty quiet about it. Kind of an ideal roommate in that regard.

He became Nathaniel’s partner. They got used to one another quickly, only because they had to. Nathaniel couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he stopped freezing up when Andrew got closer to him, but he noticed it around the same time Andrew did.

Somewhere along the line, they started to speak to each other. One night in December, Andrew had his elbows on the windowsill, leaning out to breathe smoke into the cold winter air, when Nathaniel slid up next to him and reached for the packet of cigarettes resting against one of his forearms. Andrew’s hand had snapped down onto Nathaniel’s, his eyes slanted sideways as he propped his cigarette against his lower lip, and Nathaniel had stood, his jaw clenched and gaze wary, until Andrew’s hand loosened. “You don’t smoke.”

“No,” Nathaniel had agreed, shaking a cigarette out of the packet and balancing it between his lips. Andrew had leaned over, his hands cupping around their cigarettes, and inhaled until the glowing end of his lit Nathaniel’s. His pale eyelashes had brushed his cheekbones, and Nathaniel had watched his face until his eyes darted back up and their gazes met, twin fires burning in their pupils. They’d stayed there, elbows almost brushing as they stared out of the window, and hadn’t said another word.

Christmas came and went with no celebration. As always. Andrew had a brother and cousin in South Carolina, but he didn’t go see them. He stayed at Evermore. Nathaniel thought he might be grateful for that. He hadn’t really realised how used to Andrew’s presence he was until he considered not having it anymore. It was familiar and steadying by that point; when Andrew was behind him, silent and acting completely disinterested in whatever was going on in front of him, Riko was just a little quieter, his face just a little less cruel, his actions just a little more restrained. As if Andrew reined him in. Hard to believe, and Nathaniel sure as hell _didn’t_ believe it. But every time Riko went for him after he deflected a poor shot or stumbled and let one through, Andrew was somehow at his shoulder, staring in the opposite direction and leaning casually on his racquet. Andrew would tell them to keep playing as if he were the one in charge, and they _would_ keep playing.

He wasn’t completely free, because he never would be. He came back to their room with bruises, with bandages, stitches, sometimes plaster. Andrew showed up with bruises sometimes. He and Riko had a fundamental distrust of one another that always translated into an argument that wasn’t quite a fight, or a fight that wasn’t quite a brawl. The difference was that where Nathaniel and Jean were assets that could be liquidated, Andrew wasn’t. Andrew was his own person, he wasn’t part of a transaction. He was sober, he’d made a name for himself. He had a contract with the Ravens, but if he were released from that contract, he was less likely to _disappear_. Andrew had the chance to get out.

* * *

In contrast to Christmas, New Year’s was a completely different thing. Even at the Nest. The Moriyamas’ contacts came to Evermore, investors came to see where their money had gone. The team were required to be there, to match one another, and to stay silent. It wasn’t a hard job. What was hard was drifting around a court with music thrumming through his chest, Andrew a couple of steps ahead of him, following Riko and pretending he didn’t feel hands slip under his jacket, dance across his shoulders. Someone had the poor sense to brush fingertips over the side of Andrew’s neck; even in the dim light, Nathaniel saw Andrew’s knuckles whiten when he grabbed the hand that had touched him and crushed it. He caught hold of Andrew’s forearm silently, and the blonde glowered at him for a minute before he let go and they moved on.

It wasn’t until past two that they were allowed to leave. Jean and Kevin were among the last, Jean’s arm looped under Kevin’s as they left; Nathaniel chose not to consider what kind of state Kevin was in. Riko went ahead of them, didn’t look back. Andrew and Nathaniel stayed, perched high in the stands as they watched the court emptying below them and didn’t look at each other. As long as they were together, Riko wouldn’t come looking for either of them, not at that time of night after he’d been drinking. For once, they could sit in silence and feel like they weren’t being watched or analysed.

Nathaniel’s eyelids were drooping, chin propped in one hand, by the time Andrew moved. He caught a flash of the motion on the periphery of his vision; Andrew’s hand settled on his knee, palm up and fingers curled loosely inwards as he considered the high ceiling above them. For a second, Nathaniel considered pressing his fingertips into Andrew’s palm, linking their hands together. He smiled tiredly to himself and shook his head, turning his attention downwards towards the last couple of people stumbling off the court arm in arm. The sound of laughter died away, and then Andrew got to his feet with a long exhale and looked down at Nathaniel.

“Coming,” he asked, a not-question that invited no discussion. Nathaniel nodded, and Andrew offered him a hand up. That wasn’t unusual in itself, it had happened once or twice before after a bad check. What was unusual was the fact that Andrew’s fingers lingered, wrapped warmly around Nathaniel’s hand.

As his grip loosened finally, Nathaniel’s chest squeezed and he shook his head, “no” slipping out of his mouth before he could stop it. Andrew stilled, and although the look he gave Nathaniel was possibly the most disinterested one he had _ever_ given him, his fingers curled again, sliding between Nathaniel’s. 

“Yes?” This time it was a question. Nathaniel nodded again, clamping down on a smile.

“Yeah.” Andrew sighed and punched his shoulder with his free hand, jabbing a finger into his face.

“Stop smiling like that.”

“Like what?”

Andrew fixed him with a dangerous look, and Nathaniel grinned. “You know like what.” 

He started down the stairs towards the exit and Nathaniel followed a couple of steps behind, close enough that their hands were practically invisible between them without being _too_ close. Everyone knew Andrew liked his space. Nathaniel wasn’t naive by any stretch - he knew not to push it just because Andrew was still holding his hand.

He thought about letting go when they got out into the hall. It was dark and quiet, the sound of the door closing behind them the only thing to break the silence, but it was risky enough to be doing what they were doing on an empty court; in a hallway with a million turns someone could round at any point, it was just stupid.

Andrew turned to him and opened his mouth as if to speak, light eyes darting restlessly over Nathaniel’s face. Under the attention, Nathaniel’s cheeks flushed unbidden, he could feel the heat spread across his face, and as if that was what Andrew had been searching for, he closed his mouth again and his lips twitched faintly.

Neither of them spoke, because neither of them needed to speak. They returned back to their room in silence. Only when the door closed did Andrew let go of Nathaniel’s hand again, slinking across to their window to shove it open. There was the lightest dusting of snow across the ground outside when Nathaniel went to join him. It hadn’t been snowing when they’d left their room. He slipped a hand into Andrew’s pocket, earning himself a glare as he withdrew Andrew’s pack of cigarettes, and passed one to Andrew before he lit the lighter and held it between them. The flame danced in Andrew’s eyes and he knew it was reflected in his own just the same as they leaned together in one motion. They stayed where they were once Nathaniel dropped the lighter onto the sill, Andrew’s eyes fixed on his own, pinning him in place like a butterfly in a shadow box.

Nathaniel remembered when he was nine and the Butcher told him not to look at girls. Girls were a distraction. Nathaniel needed to be smarter than that. So he didn’t look. He didn’t care about looking. He didn’t care about looking at _anyone_.

This was different. He and Andrew had spent months circling each other, getting used to being around another person in such close quarters, getting over mutual distrust. They’d gone from that distrust, from sharing their space with someone they didn’t even tolerate - let alone like - to this. To holding hands in the dark, to sharing cigarettes and long glances as bitingly cold air drifted over their faces. To Andrew’s gaze, sharp and assessing as their shoulders bumped together, to the hand that once again found its way into Nathaniel’s own. This was different because it was Andrew Minyard.

Nathaniel stabbed his cigarette out on the sill and flicked the butt away, watching it loop through the sky before it fell and disappeared into the darkness. He gave Andrew another look, then moved to step away from the window, turning back into the room and away from the window. A hand on his arm stopped him from going too far. For a heartbeat, he stood stock still and glanced down at Andrew’s hand, waiting for him to take it back. It was only when Andrew _didn’t_ that he looked back up at the blonde’s face. Andrew’s eyebrows were pinched together, his eyes narrowed a little as he stared out of the window and not at Nathaniel.

“What?” he murmured, propping an elbow against the sill again as Andrew’s fingers tightened almost painfully around his forearm.

Andrew glared at him as if he’d said something personally offensive. Nathaniel stared back blandly. “Yes or no?” Andrew asked suddenly, gesturing to Nathaniel as if he were supposed to know what the fuck that meant.

“Yes?” he answered after a second’s pause, with no idea what he was agreeing to, but knowing full well that whatever it was, he almost definitely was on board.

Andrew sucked his teeth, rolled his eyes like Nathaniel had said something painfully stupid, and leaned over. His mouth was inches away from Nathaniel’s when he spoke again, eyes flicking up from Nathaniel’s lips to meet his gaze steadily. “Yes? Or no?” he repeated, a little slower.

“Yes,” Nathaniel said again, his voice low and quiet. His mouth was still curled around the sound when Andrew leaned up to close the gap between them, stubbing his own cigarette out blindly and leaving the end of it still smouldering on the sill as his hand lifted to cup the side of Nathaniel’s neck.

It was Nathaniel’s first kiss. That was the weirdest bit. The rest of it felt natural; Andrew’s teeth catching on his lower lip, the slightest graze of blonde stubble against his chin, the warm palm pressed against his neck and the warmth of Andrew’s body radiating against him, cutting through the chill coming in through the window. He raised a hand, then lowered it again, sensing the way Andrew tensed up in how his fingers curled against Nathaniel’s neck, blunt nails scratching. Apparently, not such a good idea. So he pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants and let Andrew’s other hand lift to curl around the back of his neck, thumbs pressing lightly into the hollows behind his jawbone as they kissed. Andrew’s tongue swiped along his upper lip and he stiffened instinctively, jerking his head back in surprise.

Andrew’s hands fell away as if he’d been burned and Nathaniel immediately missed their warmth. He forced himself to focus, though, blinking his eyes open - when had he closed them? - and cocking his head to the side at the look Andrew gave him. “I’m fine.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes as if that were the wrong thing to say, rocking up on his toes and curling a hand in Nathaniel’s dress shirt to tug him forward into another quick kiss, then detached himself and slipped away. “You’re stupid,” he corrected as he peeled his shirt off and switched it out for his pajama shirt. 

Nathaniel, one shoulder propped against the wall and arms folded to stop his fingers from drifting up to his mouth where the ghost of Andrew’s kiss still lingered, snorted. 

“Also that.”

Andrew stilled, shirt in a heap on the floor, and slid a bored look over at him. It was a shame for Andrew that the look on his face was in direct contrast with the way his eyes swept over Nathaniel from head to foot, really, or he might have got away with it. “Go to bed,” he said finally, voice flat as he turned away and made for their shared bathroom. Nathaniel grinned as he unbuttoned his shirt and the bathroom door closed.

* * *

Things sort of carried on as usual after that night. Neither one of them was the type to expect everything to change just because they’d kissed. They both knew that wasn’t how life actually worked. There was way too much to prove and way too much on the line. 

They knew that in theory. In practice, more often than not they would both tuck themselves on Andrew’s bed, backs pressed against the wall, Nathaniel’s fingers laced between Andrew’s as they studied and smoked and didn’t talk to one another. They were dangerous on the court, more so than usual. As if they knew how to dance around one another, as if Andrew could predict if and when Nathaniel would fail to stop a shot and know where it would rebound off his net. As if Nathaniel knew without checking when Andrew wasn’t quite as laser-focused and knew to work just a little harder to keep the goal clear.

Maybe it wasn’t bad if they played like that. 

It didn’t mean they stopped sniping at each other. Nathaniel still threw Andrew’s shoes at him with a few choice insults when he fell over them on his way into the room. Andrew still threw them back twice as hard, his aim deadly and his gaze unrepentant. They still ignored each other when they were around anyone else. They still flinched away from touching one another, something Riko took _delight_ in watching.

Only now, when Nathaniel launched Andrew’s boots at his head, the blonde ducked them, ended up toe to toe with him, and Nathaniel always murmured a quiet “yes” as whatever was in his hand dropped to the floor and Andrew backed him up against the wall.

Now, Andrew’s pinky hooked around Nathaniel’s the second the door closed behind them, shutting them away from the rest of the team. The room Nathaniel had started off hating, the room that had stifled him and the roommate he’d been terrified of were now familiar and comfortable. Kissing Andrew was comfortable. Touching him was comfortable.

Boundaries were a problem they’d had to figure out early on. _Yes or no_ became their normal, it became a sounding board. Nathaniel spent hours one weekend in February, when Riko was sick and everyone hiding from his DayQuil induced foul mood, twisted up in Andrew’s bedsheets, trailing his fingertips down the lines of strong arms, across the peaks and valleys of his ribs, over his stomach and down to his hips, seeking out the very edges of his limits so he knew where the lines were drawn. He knew not to twist his fingers into Andrew’s hair, he knew not to try to touch Andrew; he even remembered that when his brain was scrambled and afterglow made his hands a little more daring. And in return, Andrew knew where stress always settled on Nathaniel’s shoulders, knew when to lace their fingers together and when to leave him alone, knew _just_ how to twist his wrist to make Nathaniel bury a groan in his pillow.

That was one of the least complicated things about their not-relationship; the limits to their tolerance of touch. They knew each other. They didn’t touch in public. Their borders were carefully laid out. Andrew touched Nathaniel, and Nathaniel didn’t touch him. When Andrew’s hand slipped into his own jeans, Nathaniel cupped his sharp jaw and kissed him until Andrew was gasping for breath, teeth catching meanly at Nathaniel’s lower lip as the motion of his hand came to a helpless, stuttering stop. It didn’t mean there weren’t snags: the first time Andrew dropped to his knees in front of Nathaniel, he froze up and it took almost an hour to talk him out of his own head; the first time he let Nathaniel’s hands any lower than his waist, it was Nathaniel’s turn to freak out over the sheer trust Andrew put in him, and it was a good few weeks before he let himself try again. Andrew called him Nathan once and Nathaniel punched him in the mouth (they’d settled on Neil after that; the fewer reminders of the Butcher of Baltimore, the better).

But it worked for them. They were used to being in each other’s space as it was. They’d shared a room for long enough that the switch to sharing a bed was a logical one. They were both light sleepers and more often than not if one woke in the night, the other would follow soon after. The difference now was that when they did wake, one of them would slide a hand onto the other’s hip or shoulder or forearm, let it rest there until their breathing returned to normal. It was a small difference, but it was noticeable. It was there. In everyone else's eyes, they were roommates, they were a dangerous pair on an Exy court, and they were **3** and **5** even to one another. They were a lot of things, but no one would have said they were together. Not even Neil and Andrew.

That was fine; they knew what they were. Their actions had always spoken louder than their words.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, yell at me on [tumblr](https://jeanmoreaun.tumblr.com)
> 
> thanks to [tara](https://euripiides.tumblr.com/) for the verbal abuse she gave me while beta reading this.


End file.
